Hi Everyone,

-Hope everyone is doing well & getting ready for Xmas! I have a small request to ask. I need an honest reply to what I’m about to post below. It can be either positive or negative-and if it’s negative, that’s OK. It’s just your opinion-no one’s gonna get mad at you or anything.I’d really appreciate it.

-Here’s the situation. As you may know, for quite some time now, I’ve been writing in the CB My Space Blog recaps of what has been happening at CB shows. Now, admittedly, I tend to be long-winded at times and detail oriented-hence why alot of them are quite long. This is who I am though and I don’t have a problem with it. In fact, I kinda view it like a tour diary of sorts. As I said, I’ve been doing this for awhile and-with the increase in our shows-more frequently. Here’s where it gets interesting….

-I got into quite an discussion w/ someone I know in regards to what I write in the blogs recently. Now, before I continue, let me mention that we currently have over 650 people subscribed to the CB My Space Blog. You can see the stats on the views and such on the blog page. This person tells me that a lot of people have told this person that the blogs I write are filled with “non-essential bull crap” and “who cares about stuff like broken strings, what songs you played,etc.” In addition, this person said these people just read it for “comic relief” and that I should change the way I write the blogs. In addition to that, this person has said that-it doesn’t matter that you have 500+ people subscribed to your blog-hardly anyone ever posts on them-thus proving the point that the way I write the blogs are a joke and that I should change the way I do so to appease these people.

-Now, you’d think the solution to this dilemma would be simple (so simple that a Caveman could do it-HA!). The obvious reply to this would be “If they don’t like what I write on this blog, then tell them to stop reading it & go somewhere else.” But that’s not good enough I guess. It seems obvious to me that this person does not know what a blog is all about. A blog is like a journal-you can write in it whatever you want to write about. The main difference between a blog & a journal is that a journal is private-with a blog, people can see and/or comment on what’s said. This has, in part, lead to another discussion where I’m accused of being blinded cause “all these people” are saying how bad we are and I’m not listening to it. I actually do. The difference between this person & me is this. I know there are bad things said about CB/me-I’ve seen a lot of it-but so what? Any musician-or anyone who goes into the public eye for that matter-will get ragged on at some point. It’s just a given. But I also know there are good things said-at the shows, on the comments, on the Guestbook, etc.-and it basically evens things out in my mind. However, this person basically believes that anything good said about CB is just people either feeling compelled to say something to be nice, people who are just giving flattery, or people who want something from me (like sex). My belief is that both opinions are out there-and they are all valid. However, I’m not a preacher. I don’t have the time to try to convert people and it’s meaningless to try. If people like CB-great. If not-oh well. That’s their decision and even if their criticisms were addressed and “fixed”, chances are these people would still not like us and just pick on something else to grumble about. If people don’t like what they see/hear about CB-I have no problem with that. There are thousands of bands out there-I’m sure there’s one out there that will fit your needs. But to sit there and try to change things every time someone makes a complaint-that’s a sure fire way to fail.

-One other thing to mention is that, I’m sorry, but there’s more to the music world than the CNY music scene. I’ve had this brought up before by certain people who try to make it sound like the negative feedback CB receives locally is the only valid feedback cause people in places like My Space aren’t “real.” This has always been crazy to me. Just cause someone doesn’t live in CNY and hasn’t seen a show live doesn’t mean that their opinion isn’t valid. The person who bought a CB CD in Arizona, Norway, Japan, Germany, etc. or who just hit the CB page and listened to the songs on there have as much right to voice an opinion about CB (good or bad) as the person who comes to multiple shows. Just because an opinion differs from your own doesn’t mean that it’s automatically wrong…

-Now granted, I do believe that, if things aren’t working, you should examine things to see why and make some changes.And also, admittedly, there are times when I can be very stubborn about changing. We’re currently doing some changes now-which I’ve explained in previous entries. And, admittedly, I may have gone a little far with that-but so far the plan is working and we’ll continue to see how things turn out. We’ll probably have to make adjustments on the way, but that’s OK. The main point of all this is you can’t please everyone. Even Jesus isn’t well liked by everyone and if he’s not-what chance do the rest of us have?

-I was just interested in hearing what you all think about this. Granted, I’m still going to be writing long winded show recaps after all this 🙂 And again, if you give a negative reply-that’s OK. I’m not going to come down on you. It’s OK to be friends w/ me & not be a fan of CB. Music is an individual & subjective thing. If you like what we do-great. If not-fine. For those of you who do think the blogs I write are garbage-fine-you don’t have to keep coming back to read them. You can unsubscribe if you want to-it’s OK. And if you don’t like CB for whatever reason, it’s OK to delete us off your friends list. I’d rather have someone say straight out “I don’t like CB” & stick with that than someone say they like us but, behind our back, rag on us. It’s kinda like someone coming into your house, complaining that they don’t like the way you have your furniture laid out, and saying you should change it. No-you just don’t go back to that house. Simple right? You’d think…..

-Thanks in advance & wishing you all the best.

WWJ